Of Pancakes and Trees
by WavesOfWisdom99
Summary: Nico Di Angelo was never a people person, so agreeing to babysit was probably not such a good idea. A little one shot set a while in the future. I own only my OC


A/N thank you guys soooo much for the reads and reviews...please do let me know what you think of this story! A little background, Percy and Annabeth have been married for 5 years and they have a 4 year old daughter. They're 26. Nico is 23 and lives with Will. They're engaged. Hope you like it!

Nico's POV

Nico wasn't really sure why he agreed to this. He could've easily said no, pulled an excuse about work and passed it off to Hazel or Jason or someone. But no, he'd agreed and now, instead of watching a movie with Will or getting some work done, he was spending his Saturday evening sitting in the Chase-Jackson living room, staring at his niece, Olivia Jackson.

Percy had IMed him a few hours ago, begging for his help because he and Annabeth were going out but they had forgotten to get a babysitter for their four year old and Annabeth was going to kill him cause he was supposed to have done that and what were cousins for, right? Nico was going to say no, but Percy pulled a pout-face and promised to get him a weeks worth of Sally's cookies so he had relented. He was kind of regretting that now.

It wasn't that he didn't like his niece, he actually did. In comparison to most other people, including adults, she was decently bearable, but she was still 4 years old and as a result, bound to be difficult sometimes. Like now.

All Nico was supposed to be doing was giving Olivia her dinner. Annabeth, not trusting Nico to cook something edible that wasn't ready-to-eat and microwaveable (smart woman), had made some sort of casserole for her daughter to eat. Things got complicated when Olivia decided that she didn't want the some-sort-of-casserole. No, she wanted pancakes.

"Come on Olivia! Your mom can make you pancakes tomorrow for breakfast. Pancakes aren't dinner food!" Nico pleaded again.

Olivia pouted, "But Unca Nico, the dinner Mommy made is icky!"

She had a point there. The some-sort-of-casserole looked revolting. But still, it was probably a better dinner than pancakes.

"Olive," Nico resorted to using his nickname for her that had originally come into existence only to annoy Percy, "Sweetheart, your mom will kill me if you don't eat. And your dad. And the rest of your uncles and aunts." Nicknames, guilt trips, Nico was pulling out the big guns now.

But Olivia knew her uncle too well. She sat next to him on the sofa and cuddled into his arm. "Unca Nico? Pwease pwease PWEASE can I have pancakes? Pwease?"

She shot him puppy eyes and his resistance crumbled. He was going to blame Percy for this one, since Olivia had his eyes, black curly hair and his ability to look like a baby seal at the drop of a hat.

With a groan, he relented. "Fine, come on kid, let's make you pancakes."

An hour later, Nico managed to find pancake mix, make pancakes (with only 1 burnt batch and a 2 minute emergency IM to Thalia), get Olivia to eat said pancakes, and get her ready for bed. He was absolutely exhausted. After tucking Olivia in, he collapsed onto the couch, thinking about how even shadow traveling across the country didn't make him this tired.

He had dozed off, when footsteps and a soft, "Unca Nico?" woke him up.

Biting back a groan, he opened one eye to see his niece standing over him, black hair messy and eyes frightened. He was wide awake in an instant.

"Olive? What's wrong?"

"I can't sleep. Monsters."

Now, Nico was in a dilemma. He had spent enough time with Will at the children's hospital to know that when kids said 'monsters' they generally meant the shadow of their lamp or the coat rack or something. On the other hand, this wasn't a normal kid. Olivia was the daughter of two of the most powerful demigods in history. And he, a son of Hades, was in the same apartment.

"Alright, let's check it out," he told Olivia, getting up and picking her up as well. He had put his sword in the umbrella stand, and he knew where Annabeth kept the emergency weapons, but still, he didn't want to kill something in the middle of the night when all he was supposed to be doing was watching a little kid.

They got to Olivia' room and she cowered further into his arms. She pointed to the window and whispered, "There." He put her down and went to investigate.

He could hear scraping from outside that sounded worryingly like claws. A dracnae? A hellhound? Something worse? He didn't know.

Nico tensed into a battle stance and pulled open the window to find...a tree. A tree whose branches had been hitting the window and making weird noises.

Letting out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, he turned back to his niece and smiled. "See? It's just a tree. You're fine."

Olivia blushed, "Oh, whoops. I knew that."

Nico had to laugh at that. He tucked her in again, and waited until she fell asleep before passing out on the couch again.

Percy and Annabeth showed up the next morning to find the King of Ghosts fast asleep, face down on their couch. Annabeth woke him up with a not-so-gentle shove on the shoulder.

"Hmm? Huh? Where? Oh. Hey guys."

"Morning Nico. How was she?" Annabeth asked.

"Angel. How she manages that with you two as parents I will never know."

Annabeth punched him for that as he walked into the kitchen to get some orange juice.

"Nothing went wrong?" Percy asked, pulling out a glass for his cousin and himself.

"She's a Jackson, of course something went wrong," Nico replied, pouring out juice for both of them, " She didn't want Annabeth's casserole and wanted pancakes. Oh, and we had a bit of a monster scare."

Percy nearly spit out his juice and Nico was pretty sure Annabeth's jaw had dropped to Tartarus. "WHAT?!"

Nico smirked, "Yeah, turns out, tree branches against window panes are a seriously menace." He cracked up as realization dawned on Percy and Annabeth and they relaxed,

Annabeth glared at him, "Not funny."

"Actually pretty hilarious if you think about it."

Percy rolled his eyes.

"Alright then, I'll catch you guys later," Nico told them. With a hug to Annabeth and a wave to Percy he slipped into the shadows, ready to see if Will was up to a pajama day.

A/N So, what do you think? Let me know :)


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